Get your synoptic meteorology on, YC!

[Enrique]

You know me, you know I know about two things: Tetris and global warming propaganda weather. We all live in crazy places with crazy weather, so tell us about your crazy weather. You don't even have to be a synoptic meteorology expert - anyone who sees my forecasting output knows that I'm not.

Speaking of, I'll occasionally chime in with something potentially interesting relating to synoptic meteorology and forecasting if something big is occurring, i.e. complain about the models.

Like this little tidbit: with all of these snowstorms that have been running up the Atlantic coast and smacking New England, Boston is now over 40 inches above its normal amount to date.

[starrgrl24]

I am from Maryland and we only had about 3-4 inches of snow, but it caused some terrible damage. Too much snow and so little hours can cause quite a lot of problems. Many homes were out of power. We may have not gotten as much snow as Boston, but we still felt the wrath of it.

You know? I wanted to major in meteorology and I was well prepared, but I changed to music. xD I love meteorology as well.

Really...the next storm system to worry about is the one that coming on Wednesday here on the mid-atlantic region. Some wintry mix. Driving to college will be crazy that day. xD Hey...it's usually around January and February is when the big storm comes. I love snow...so why should I complain.

[red.yoshi]

I live around your area, in south eastern Pennsylvania to be exact. I think we had a little more accumulation here. We do share the forecast for the storm this upcoming week.

However, other than this, the area I live in remains quite temperate throughout the year.

[Rainbow Yoshi]

We had a little storm here a few days ago. It wasn't too bad though. Just a little snow. Most of it has melted now.

In my hometown though, there was apparently a pretty big storm. My friends were telling me about how they were stuck in their driveways, and my sister told me that school was canceled for her.

[Anjil]

Winter in Arizona has felt like beach weather! Highs in the mid-70s with maybe a cloud or two in the sky. Early mornings are cold and gusty, though, around the high 30s. That probably doesn't sound so bad to most, but I've lived in desert-like areas for probably half my life.

We haven't had a monsoon in a while... I think the last one that hit was while we were in California. But we never found any water damage, so it probably wasn't too bad! The one before that made our windows leak.

It's supposed to get slightly cooler in the coming week, with highs in the low to mid-60s.

[Digi]

Yeaaah, another southeast Pennsylvanian here. The snow around here was like 6 inches. These snowstorms around my area have made commuting quite troublesome.

Can't say I dislike it too much though. As long as it's still snow and not ice.

[teh yoshi]

I'm from Las Vegas. We have two seasons: Hot and Not Hot.

Currently, it's Not Hot.

As of recently, around late December and such, we've been getting snow. Yes, snow in the desert. It should be quite the surprise if anyone hasn't been following the news lately. It'd be nice to get some rain every now and then, but looks like that part of wint-...I mean Not Hot season is over with and it'll clear skies for the rest of the year.

Go desert...

[Matoking]

Well, at the moment it is around -1.5C but it has gone as low as -20C. There has been a plenty of snow, but not that much as previous year. (almost as much as in the picture)

[starrgrl24]

haha....that picture is epic. Well...I highly doubt we'll get as much snow as last year. xD Winter of 2010 was an epic year for snow. 2-3 feet of snow in the D.C metropolitan area. It was record breaking! This year...we're lucky that we even got snow.

[Enrique]

Looking at the latest model runs (01/29/2011 12Z), it looks like we'll have even more fun in the northeast next Wednesday.

A ridiculous high pressure - the GFS draws a 1052 mb isobar around it for Tuesday morning - drops in from Canada to eastern Montana throughout the day Monday. NWS Glasgow MT has a high temperature of -9°F in Glasgow, MT for Monday, and -6°F for Tuesday. Current low temp. forecast for Monday night: -28°F. Winds should be high over western Colorado Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a cutoff low currently over the Pacific will join the dominating flow pattern over the course of the weekend. More than a few isolated snow storms will pop up over the Rockies. Monday night, a nice cyclone will start to develop when the cutoff - now more of a shortwave embedded in a larger trough - hits eastern New Mexico/western Texas. Downstream, Gulf of Mexico moisture enters the developing surface low. By the time the cyclone dumps some rain in the southeast, the shortwave will more or less be absorbed in the trough. The jet downstream of the trough lines up nicely with the persistent low over the Hudson Bay, and is developing to be a whopper. This means that our cyclone will be mature quickly and will beeline for the northeast. Albany will no doubt get slammed, along with southern New England, who's had more than their fair share of snow so far this winter.

Exiting North America, the jet along the Atlantic coast looks to continue to strengthen, meaning this cyclone could bomb - drop in pressure at the rate of at least 1 mb/hr. Unfortunately, the models start to become unreliable this far out in time.

Another thing to note: this trough that the models have developing east of that brutal cold air mass looks like it will act like a cutoff low. Experience tells me that the models tend to struggle with cutoffs, and we have two of them in this scenario. So it's hard to tell whether the timing of this will actually match up with this run, especially since all of this with the cyclone is developing more than 72 hours out.

[Enrique]

So this here cyclone passed over last night, and has more or less exited the northeastern U.S. The Canadian maritimes are still coping with it, though. 10 inches of snow and sleet fell on Albany overnight. Not the 20 inches that were predicted on the back whiteboard of the map room, but my car is still buried in the back parking lot of my apartment complex. Back home, they got about 5 inches or so.

Right now, we still have some snow showers hanging out around the state, even here in Albany, due to lake effect and residual vorticity maxima downstream of the upper air trough. Another cyclone looks to be developing the southeast throughout the day Friday and will run up the coast during the day Saturday. At the moment, the current model tracks have the brunt of the storm offshore, but with a local precip. max over my current general area Saturday night.

It looks like the upper air trough over the midwest is just going to hang out there for a while. Maybe there'll be a brief ridge next week, but who knows this far out. So more big snowstorms to come for the northeast U.S.

[Rainbow Yoshi]

We still haven't received any snow here since last week, but yesterday and today have been very cold. Between 0 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit, I think.

Nasty cold... I hate it.